Posts Tagged ‘machine’

On behalf of the soldiers who continue to lose their lives, their livelihoods or their sense of well being, discarded after use by a for-profit enterprise built on bloodshed.

On behalf of the children who continue to lose their lives, their families, their sense of wonder at the world, because some group somewhere else gave themselves the authority to remotely execute other humans without due trial, oversight or accountability.

On behalf of the richest and most powerful global population to date, torn apart by an industry whose very existence depends upon our staying divided as a people, when the money being wasted on warfare could finally lift the entire human race out of the grips of desperate poverty.

It is time to enact The World’s People V The World’s Top 100 Defense Earners, for all the pain and suffering they continue to enable. They can still make arms all they want, but the trillions they’ve been reaping in profits will be forfeited.

Americans spend trillions of dollars on warfare every single year. This is an absurd amount of money to spend on anything, let alone using it to blow up your fellow humans on an industrialized scale. With that kind of cash, you could end extreme poverty the world over, give every person a home and an education, and dramatically lift the tide which raises all ships.

The financial costs are an incredible burden, and the emotional scars would take generations to heal even if war ended this very second. The longer these large scale conflicts get prolonged, the worse off our entire world is.

So why aren’t Americans ending war? If the US people, much like the rest of us, just want to live and prosper in peace, why don’t their politicians listen to them and give them what they want?

The sad truth is that they can’t.

The entire American system has, to the detriment of the world, fallen victim to what can only be described as a parasitic entity, a beast that has been around in one form or another for thousands of years.

Whether through anesthetizing concepts like pride and security, the unfettered power of wealth, or, when all else fails, brute force, the war machine of which I speak has been able to keep countless populations within their grasp – and right now their prey is the American public.

So even when the vast majority of Americans want peace, a political system which is mostly theatre combined with a deliberate lack of guidance from the media makes it hard for the anti-war movement to gain the momentum needed to make a significant impact.

But peace-loving Americans won’t stay down for much longer. They simply cannot. Fueled by a crumbling economy, driven by global awareness, and united by social media, a multi-million person strong movement will prove more powerful than the entire military industrial complex. Or so we shall hope.

The world is changing faster than even those who sit atop can control. Unprecedented technology is causing new concepts like transparency and global solidarity to crash down on our world. As the old guard falls away, a newfound democracy is sure to bring to fruition the civilization our species has been cultivating for eons.

Interviewing 130 people in Pakistan about their personal experiences with U.S.-led drone attacks – 69 of which had either survived or lost family to a strike attack – the report builds on findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which counted ’474 to 884 civilian deaths since 2004,including 176 children’ while ‘only about 2% of drone casualties are top militant leaders.

The report also shows that American UAV attacks violate international law, making them illegal war crimes. Obama is now complicit in human rights violations and should stand trial alongside the Bush Administration.

Furthermore, the team found drone strikes to be ineffectual and counter-productive, stating: ‘Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.’

So that settles it, right? No more need to prolong the injustice. Tell everyone you know about how wrong drone strikes are, and together we can finally put an end to long distance murder.

Aren’t you sick of war yet? Haven’t you grown tired of the defense sector increasingly siphoning your precious lifeblood, this swollen and diseased parasite latched on to your once great nation’s face?

Sure, the Military Industrial Complex offers up an anesthetic. Concepts like honor, bravery, nationality, and freedom numb the pain for some and blind the truth for others. But in the end, humanity endures no suffering more intense than that caused by war.

War inflicts such a staggering emotional and financial toll on society that you’d think these massive ongoing fights are imperative, but they are not. The world is ready for peace. Yet perpetual armed conflict, the trillion dollar business it is, permits a handful of powerful corporations to pull political puppet strings, pushing military spending to unprecedented heights.

If you are indeed sick of war, as you should very well be, rest assured you are not alone. Most Americans are ready for their troops to come home and for the fighting to stop. But they are waiting. Waiting for government to decide to cease fighting, or counting on the mainstream media to declare wars to be over. But that will never happen on its own.

Instead it is up to you, dear Americans, just as it is the responsibility of every citizen of earth, to stand up against the empire of war and say NO MORE! WE ARE THROUGH FIGHTING OURSELVES! YOU HEAR US? WAR IS OVER!

Doing this in greater and greater numbers will erode the war machine from within. And not long after that, the peace which has been culminating for centuries will finally be set free to envelop the planet.

Are you male? Aged 13-60? Living in the Middle East or North Africa? If you answered yes to all three questions, then congratulations, you are now officially a militant in the eyes of the United States of America!

‘But I haven’t done anything!’ you may cry, but to no avail. The instant you get blown up by an American drone strike, you immediately become known as a militant, regardless of who you actually are.

This is all part of President Obama’s strategy to downplay civilian casualties. By considering ‘all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants‘, it makes the number of murdered innocents seem far lower, and somehow makes the war more palatable to the public.

If this keeps up, anyone who gets obliterated by American bombs – men, women, and children alike – will be considered enemies of the state. Their crime? Being dead innocent human beings, which is damaging to the image of the war. Ergo, they are threats to the US, and therefore deserving of the bombings they had just received.

Just a few moments ago during today’s question period, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his trademark condescending tone, danced around the question as to whether or not Canada’s military role in Afghanistan will be extended beyond 2014.

He pulled the old ‘best interest of the country’ line which, not unlike the catch-all ‘because we are at war’ rationale, really refers to the interests of his wealthiest supporters and is intended to silence any criticism. “What… don’t you care about protecting Canadians or Afghans?” (more…)

Graphic images have surfaced showing American soldiers posing with dead Afghan body parts. Disgusting and disgraceful, not to mention dangerous, considering how volatile the Afghanistan situation already is, what with the burned Korans and marines urinating on corpses.

U.S. Secretary Of Defense Leon Panetta was quick to apologize, calling the behavior “foolish” and “unacceptable.”

Panetta also tried to justify the photos, saying “This is war, and I know war is ugly, and is violent. And I know young people sometimes caught up in the moment make some very foolish decisions.”

Yeah, they do. But that won’t stop him and others from arming these young, potentially foolish people and setting them loose upon foreign nations. (more…)